detroit



April 13 1926. 1,580,353

J. G. VINCENT HYDROCARBON MOTOR Filed March l2 1921 Patented Apr. 13, 1926.

UNITED STATE-s 1,580,353 PATENT oFFl-cE.

JESSE G'. VINCENT, OF DETROIT, MICHIGAN, ASSIGNOR TO PACKARD MOTOR CAR COM- PANY, F DETROIT, MICHIGAN, A CORPORATION OF MICHIGAN.

nYnBocAnBoN moron.

Application led March 12, 19421. Serial No. 451,851.`

To all whom it may concern: l

Be it known that I, JEssn .G.'V1NCENT, a citizen o f the vUnited States, and resident of Detroit, Wayne County, State, of Michigan, have invented certain new and useful Improvements iu Hydrocarbon Motors, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to hydrocarbon motors, and particularly to ignition mechanism therefor. f

In hydrocarbon motors it has been found that detonation may be reduced or eliminated b using three 'or four sparkplugs in each ey inder, the plugs being well dist-ributed to cause almost instantaneous firing of the entire charge. It 'is desirable 4,to lhave at least two of these plugs exactly synchronized in firing and usually all four should be synchronized. It is sometimes preferred however to have the plug or plugs nea-rest the exhaust port lire slightly ahead or in advance of the others because the mixture there is slower burning. thoughts in mind the present invention has for one of its principal objects the provision of means for synchronously firing a plural- 1ty of sparkplugs in a multi-cylinder motor, and particularly the firing of four sparkplugs in each cylinder lof' a six cylinder motor withy the firing so synchronized or related that the charge will start to burn from several separated points in the cylinder 'at the same time.A Other objects of the invention will appear from the following description taken in connection with the drawings, which form a part of this specification, and in which:

Fig. 1 is a diagrammatic view illustrating the general features of the invention;

o Fig. 2 is a perspective and artly diagrammatical. view of one of the 'stri utors and circuit breakers withtheir wiring connec- Y tions; and

Fig. 3 is a view showing the two distributors and contact breakers, with one of the distributors in section and the other in elevation, the section being on line 3-3 of Figure 2.

Referring to the drawings a sin-cylinder hydrocarbon motor is shown in F 1g. 1, the heads of the, cylinders or the combustion spaces thereof being indicated by thel numeral 10. The cylinders are numbered respectively 1, 2, 3, '11, and 6. In each of these cylinders or cyhnder heads there are lVith these 'rotary device 13.

four sparkplugs 11 and since it is intended that these sparkplugs shall be operated in pairs, or two of them operated from a single distributor, they are indicated in pairs, two of them/being. luarleedwith the small letter .af and two of thcm with the small letter b so that it will be vunderstood that the sparkplugs marked fa will bcin one circuit and the sparkplugs marked b will be in another circuit, these circuits to be described hereinafter.

In Fig. 1 two Adistributors "12 are illustrated and as both -of these distributorsarc the same inV construction butone of them is shown in more or less detail in Fig. 2. In

Fig. 1 the distributor 12 at the left of theA drawing is marked A and the one at the right is marked B. Distributor A'. is connected to the sparkplugs a of the cylinders 'and distributor B is connected lo the sparkplugs 1), as will be hereinafter de scribed.

Each ofthe distributors comprises a rotary device 13 which, asshown in Fig. 2, is mounted upon or secured to a shaft 14 which is connected to the motor for operation at one half crankshaft speed, or at the speed of the camshaft. The rotary device has two collectors one at the center l5 and one arranged at a short distance from the centers andmarked 16. The collector 15 comprises a spring pressed brush 17 which is always in contact with a central contact 18"'on the rotary device, and the collector 16 comprises a sprnig pressed brush 19 mounted in the rotary device 13 which brush is always in` contact with a ring 20 mounted in a stationary piece orcasing 21' of the distributor.

The rotary device 13 also has two 'u'iscfit uting brushes 22 and 23 which are spring pressed radially outward and are connected electrically thru conductors 24 and 25 with the collectors 15 and 16 respectively. As` shown herein these brushes 22v and 23v are in separate arms 26 and 27 respectively of the The casing '21 above'referred to has embedded in it or otherwise arranged adjacent thepath of movement of the outer ends of the arms 26 and'27, two series of. contacts 28,r so that the brushes 22 and 23, as the rotary device 13 is operated, will rub across or touch successively these contacts 28. In Figure 1, referring to either of the distributors,

it will be seen that these contacts 28 are given numbers 1 to 6, these numbers referring to the cylinder numbers 1 to 6 indicated on the cylinders or cylinder heads. The two series of contacts 26 are alternately arranged and yet they are all in the same plane so that both of the distributing brushes of the contact device will contact with all of them. Thus one series of these contacts 28 comprises the contactsl, 5, 3, 6, 2 ,and 4 beginning with the contact marked 1 at the top of the distributor in Figure 1 with whichthe distributing brush of the arm 27 is in contact, and counting clockwise as indicated by the arrow 29. 'lhe other series of brushes is indicated by the numerals `1, 5, 3, 6, 2 and 4 beginning with the contact 28 with which the distributing brush of arm 26 is `incontact. This arrangement of contacts 1-5- 3-6-2-4, indicates the iiring order of the cylinders of .the six-cylinder motor illustrated and it will be seen therefore that in a single rotation of the rotary device 13 each of the arms 26 and 27 will connect with the contacts of each series in the order named. While it is true also that each of the arms will connect with the contacts of the opposite Series yet as will be hereinafter more' fully explained there will be no sparking current passing thru the distributing brushes at that time and consequently the distributor will be inoperative until the next contact is reached.

30 is a numeral used generally to indicate the various wires extending from the contacts 28 to thesparkplugs of the motor and it will be seen, referring to Fig. 1, that each of the contacts 28 which is marked 1 has a wire 30 leading to a sparkplug in cylinder 1, each of the contacts 28 marked 2 has' a Wire 30 leading to a sparkplug in cylinder 2, and so onI with the other four cylinders. It will also be seen that in the position in which the two distributors A and B are shown in full lines in Fig. 1 all four sparkplugs'of cylinder 1 are connected to the rotary device. The next sparking point of these distributors is indicated on the righthand distributor B in dotted'lines where it will be seen that both distributing brushes are in line with contacts 28 marked 5 so that ythis distributor is connected to two of the sparkplugs of cylinder 5, those marked b. In this position of distributor B, distributor would also have its distributing brushes connected with the two sparkplugs marked a in cylinder 5 so that all four sparkplugs would be'red simultaneously in cylinder 5. The next firing position of the distributors would be cylinder 3, and so on around the distributor.

Means are illustrated in Figures .2 and 3 for producing a high tension sparking current and passing it to the distributing brushes 22 and 23. This means comprises inabove suggested,

The secondary winding 42 of the spark c'oil above referred to has one of its ends connected thru a conductor 43 with the brush 17 of the collector 15 above described, and

-has its other end connected thru a conductorA 44 with the ring 20 of the collector 15 above described. Thus the high tension current induced in the winding 42 is ycarried from both ends thereof thru the conductors 43 and 44 and thru the distributor 2 of the sparkplugs of a cylinder and of course the sparks of these plugs must of necessity be simultaneous or synchronized. It will be seen here also that there are six points to the lcam 33 of the Contact breaker so that the primary circuit will be broken six times for each revolution of the shaft 14, while there are twelve contacts on the distributor. Thus there are twice as many contacts as there are points to the cam of the circuit breaker and since the contacts are in two series alternately arranged and since there are two distributing arms or brushes, with the brushes set an uneven number of contacts from each other, there will be six tiring contacts made by each distributing larm during each revolution and six contacts in which there is no current passing thru `the brushes.

By mounting both distributors and both contact breakers 0n a single shaft as shown onA Fig. 3, and driving the shaft by a gear 45 which may loe-connected to any suitable moving part of the motor, the contact breakers themselves may be exactly synchronized or one of 'them may be arranged to lire slightly ahead of the other, as hereso that the sparkplug over the exhaust valve may operate very Sllghtly before the sparkplug over the intake valvel to thereby produce practically simultaneous burning action with the different grades of mixture in those two parts cf the cylinder.

While but a single form of the invention has been illustrated and described it will be understood that other forms may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as set forth in the claims.

CII

Having thus described my invention, what multicylinder engine, comprising a plurality of distributors each having two series of contacts, a make-and-break device for each dis-- tributor and a single shaft adapted to support and drive all said distributors' and devices. a

2. The combination with a multi-cylinder hydrocarbon motor having a plurality `of spark plugs arranged in pairs in the head of each cylinder, of ignition mechanism comprising a plurality of distributors each having two series of contacts connected to the pairs of spark plugs respectively, a makeand-break device for each distributor, the

device corresponding to the pair of spark` plugs nearest the exhaust port of the engine being timed toV operate slightly in advance of the other devices, and a single shaft adapted to operate all the distributors and devices and to maintain an invariable phase relation between all said distributors and devices.

In testimony whereof l aflix my signatule.

JESSE G. VINCENT. 

